


Rightness Anyway

by Caden_Parker



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cheating, Dark One Emma Swan, Dark Swan Arc, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Heavy Angst, Mention of Suicide Attempt, One Shot, Panic Attacks, Protective Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Self-Doubt, Self-Sacrifice, Swan Queen - Freeform, Swan-Mills-Charming Family, True Love's Kiss, mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-05 03:35:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14608413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caden_Parker/pseuds/Caden_Parker
Summary: “Emma Nolan Swan, will you marry me?” It isn’t how she means to say it; it comes out nervous and breathy and not at all with the poise of a former Evil Queen, but she supposes that’s the point. Because this isn’t about poise; it’s about love and wanting and letting go, and Regina’sready.The question is: Is Emma?





	Rightness Anyway

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Each section in this fic is headed by song lyrics.
> 
> Peter Gabriel – Book of Love
> 
> Khalid – Young, Dumb, and Broke
> 
> Linkin Park – What I’ve Done
> 
> Rihanna – What Now?
> 
> The Lumineers – Stubborn Love
> 
> John Lennon – Mother
> 
> Divide The Day – Fuck Away The Pain
> 
> Seether – Broken
> 
> Guns & Roses – This I Love
> 
> Blue October – Schizophrenia
> 
> Keaton Henson – Sweetheart, What Have You Done To Us?
> 
> Pink - Family Portrait
> 
> Metalica - Hero of the Day
> 
> The 1975 - Only You (Yazoo Cover)

**And you (ought to give me wedding rings)**

“Emma Nolan Swan, will you marry me?” It isn’t how she means to say it; it comes out nervous and breathy and not at all with the poise of a former Evil Queen, but she supposes that’s the point. Because this isn’t about poise; it’s about love and wanting and  _letting go_ , and Regina’s ready. She’s trembling despite the fire behind her, and her hands won’t stay  _still_. The black velvet box is open, and she’s on one knee and she can’t  _breathe_. Emma’s eyes are wide and blinking and wet, like she can’t believe any of it, because Regina  _wants_ her, and how the hell did  _that_ happen?

“I…” Her mouth feels like cotton, and Regina’s eyes are so  _soft_ , and Emma swears to God she’s never seen anything more beautiful. She’s not worthy of any of it. She’s darkness and nothingness and buried in what  _was_. Regina’s too good; she’s  _I’d rather suffer than see that pain on the people I care about_ , and  _Trust me_ and  _I **know** you, Emma. _Regina’s watching her, and she sees fear begin to creep into the deep brown eyes she loves so much. She wants to make it  _better_ , to throw her arms around her and say  _Of course I’ll marry you!_ But she can’t. Because like karma, the feeling of inadequacy is a bitch and Regina deserves more than the shards she’d give her. Darkness still lurks under her skin like a living thing, and she refuses to make the woman she loves suffer anymore. “I can’t.”

She watches Regina’s face crumble, watches tears form and spill over olive cheeks, and she fucking  _hates_ herself. It’s not that she doesn’t love her; it’s not like her heart isn’t  _screaming_ at her, it’s that she feels trapped by the shadows around her heart, always beckoning to hurt and destroy and  _kill._  Regina had said that the darkness would stay, that it would be an intrinsic part of her after Camelot. Emma’d believed her, but she hadn’t thought it would be like this, all-consuming and sickly and  _wrong_. She’d thought that it would stay in the back of her mind, stagnant and rotten and  _not_  self-sabotaging. She should’ve known it wasn’t going to be easy; nothing in her life ever was.

“Emma?” The brunette’s voice is small, watery, and she realizes as the blonde’s name slips from her mouth that she sounds like her younger self, like  _I loved him_ , and  _Mother I don’t want to marry the king._ Emma’s name is her anchor, the thing she repeats in her mind like a mantra when she feels her own darkness rise, but now her name sounds like choice leaving, like doom and sadness and not understanding.

Pale fingers run through dark hair. “Regina… I can’t love you the way you deserve to be loved. I’m too… broken.” And she says it like she really believes it, really thinks that’s the truth, and Regina wants to shake her and say  _You fell in love with **me** , didn’t you? Aren’t I the personification of darkness?  _But then she realizes that Emma is just staring at her, and all she can do is stare into forest-green eyes and try  _not_ to fall apart. Emma slowly reaches out with her free hand, never taking her gaze from the now blurred face in front of her, and Regina hears the sound of her heart shattering.

The ring box snaps shut.

“Emma.” The blonde’s name breaks like glass in her throat, “I love you.”

Strong arms are flung around her neck and she breathes in vanilla perfume and automatically thinks of safety; the ache in her chest reminds her this isn’t safe at  _all_. “I know. I’m so sorry, baby.” And why did she have to use  _that_  word? That word that had been breathed into Regina’s mouth and into her soul and along her skin? It didn’t fit with  _I’m sorries_.

“Sorry,” she mumbles into the crook of a convulsing neck. Out of habit she presses her lips to the frenzied beat beneath the blonde’s skin and breaths: “I ask you to marry me, Emma, and all you can say –” She pulls her closer, pulls their bodies together in a desperate attempt to get Emma to remember what  _they_ feel like, together and loving and permanent – “Is ‘I’m sorry?’”

“You know I’m not good with words,” she whispers, clutching at Regina’s trembling shoulders.

“You aren’t,” the brunette agrees with a watery laugh. She means it to be a scoff, a brush off, but it comes out sounding like she adores Emma’s propensity for atrocious word choice as much as she loves the blonde’s bed–head. And she does.

“I just need time,” Emma says, releasing her hold on the white button-up and leaning back to look into pained eyes. Regina wants to snort. Or vomit. Or both. She  _knows ‘I just need time’_ is Emma’s way of saying  _The amount of love you show me scares me and I don’t know what to do with it._

But she smiles, or tries to, and says “Fine.” Not because she thinks it  _is_ , but because she doesn’t know what the hell else to say. She stands. “I think you should stay in the guest room tonight.” She  _wants_ her voice to be hard, to be reminiscent of the Queen inside her, but she just sounds defeated and lost – the way one sounds when they know their soul is in the process of dying.

Emma reaches for her. “Regina, I –”

“Don’t, Emma. You’ve said enough.”

She nods. “Okay. Okay. Goodnight, Gina.”

 Green eyes are welling up again, and the brunette is suddenly angry at the sight of her tears. What right to does she have to cry? Regina turns away, grits out “Goodnight, Miss Swan.” She ignores Emma’s choked sob from behind her, and heads to bed.

 

**I cannot give you everything (you know I wish I could)**

“Regina?” Emma’s standing in their bedroom doorway, voice quiet and tearful. Regina’s in the middle of their bed, curled in a ball and  _aching_. “I’m sorry.” And she  _is_ , because godamnit she hates seeing Regina like this, small and meek and shattered. It’s her fault. It’s  _always_ her fault.

Regina actually manages to scoff this time. “Stop doing things you have to apologize for,” she says hoarsely, and it feels both wrong and right leaving her mouth.

Emma sighs. “You know I didn’t intend to cause you pain.”

Regina squeezes her eyes shut. “You never  _intend_ to,” she spits without looking at her. “You and your  _fucking_ hero complex.”

The blonde’s bare feet pad across the room; the bed dips as she sits on the edge. “The darkness is too strong. I can’t risk hurting you, Regina. I won’t. You….” She swallows, but can’t keep her voice from shaking as she says “You deserve so much better than me.”

Regina whirls on her, cutting her with her eyes. “You  _are_ enough for me! Don’t you understand that?!” And suddenly she can’t breathe, and the room’s too small, and she just wants to hide.

“Hey,” Emma murmurs, seeing the beginnings of a panic attack in brown eyes and touching a tan cheek in response, “It’s okay. Just breathe. It’s okay.” Regina can’t manage a retort around the cement in her throat, but she winces away. At the gentle touch of fingers on her back, she’s gasping, sobbing,  _exploding_. Her magic is radiating from her like a fucking anti-sunbeam, and why won’t Emma just  _leave_?

“Shhh baby. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”  _Nothing_ about this is okay, Emma knows that, but she doesn’t know what else to say.

“Don’t  _call_ me that,” Regina gasps. “You don’t–” She can’t finish; her chest feels like it’s caving in on itself.

Emma sits there, helpless and  _evil_ and sick. When Regina finally calms, she says “I think I’m gonna stay with Snow for awhile.”

Regina just nods.

***

**Put to rest what you thought of me (while I clean this slate with the hands of uncertainty)**

For a moment, Snow can only gape at her daughter, red-eyed and shaking at her kitchen table. “You did  _what_?!” It erupts from her in a high-pitched squeak when she manages to find her voice. Emma grimaces. Her father is equally shocked, blue eyes blinking in surprise and lips parted like a fish trap. “Emma I – How could you? After all you and Regina have been through together! You  _know_ how hard it is for her to give her heart to people!” Snow exclaims, indignant on Regina’s behalf.

Emma shuts her eyes, thinks of her would-be fiancé’s gaze and  _You **are** enough for me! Don’t you understand that?!” _and she wants to puke. “I told you, I don’t want to hurt her. The darkness–”  

“Emma, honey, have you forgotten Regina’s past?”

It’s a rhetorical question and she knows it. She clenches her jaw. “So of all the times you opposed her, you’re taking her side  _now_?”

Her mother narrows her eyes at her and grips her tea cup a little too hard. “This isn’t about  _sides_ , Emma. I’m your mother, and as such it’s my job to tell you when I think you’ve made a mistake.” Emma stays silent. Snow sees her daughter’s troubled eyes and softens. “Talk to her, sweetheart.” She places a hand over hers – “She loves you more than life itself; believe me, I know.”

The blonde buries her face in folded arms, on the verge of _wailing_ , because how the  _fuck_ can she do this to Regina? How can she not, when she knows damn well the darkness, creeping and destructive as it is, would ultimately destroy them both? “You don’t understand,” she mumbles into the cave created by her arms, “I broke her heart. I might as well have ripped it from her chest.” Tears are forming now, and her voice shakes when she says “The look on her face… I  _can’t_. I can’t hurt her anymore.”

“Emma, sweetheart…” But her words are inadequate for the kind of self-hatred she’s witnessing, and they die in her throat. She rounds the table and holds her daughter; silence is the only answer she can give. David comes to her other side, wrapping a protective arm around her and kissing the crown of her head.

“We’ll get through this,” he promises in that steady, self-assured voice of his, and Emma cries all the harder at the conviction in it.

“What have I done? God, what have I  _done_?”

***

**What now? (I just can’t figure it out)**

Regina wants to die. Of course, she realizes how ludicrous that notion is, because neither her son nor the love of her life would forgive her. She settles on prying herself from the bed –  _their_ bed, where the left side still smells like Emma – and heads to the liquor cabinet. It’s less messy this way, she thinks. She’s glad that Henry is staying at a friend’s house tonight; she has time to think of how to explain this to him. But how do you explain the unexplainable?

He had found the ring in her study drawer while looking for his storybook, insistent that the cure for Emma’s lingering darkness lie within its pages. He’d emerged from the room wide-eyed and speechless, holding the velvet box like the wondrous thing it was.  _“Mom, a–are you really gonna ask Ma to – to –?”_

She’d smiled – no,  _grinned_  – and nodded.  _“Yes.”_ And her eyes had misted at the joy on her son’s face.

 _“So, we’re gonna be a – really?”_  She’d washed her hands clean from prepping lasagna and had gone over to him, placed her hands on his ever-broadening shoulders.

_“I’m hoping so, my prince. Does Henry Daniel Swan-Mills sound alright to you?”_

_“I – I mean, yeah,”_ he’d said. Regina remembers thinking he’d gotten his eloquence from his birthmother. Then again, what thirteen year old  _could_ be described as eloquent? She shakes her head at the memory, fingers again the eighteen-carat silver ring, inlaid with both black and white diamonds. She has a sudden urge to throw it against the fucking wall, but then remembers the damned thing had cost her half a month’s salary and thinks better of it. So, what to do with it then? Keep it? Keep it so she can be reminded of how she’d failed? Keep it in the hopes that Emma would come back to her?

She snorts, reaches for the bottle of wine, and thinks maybe she can find her answers at the bottom of it.

A few hours later, her phone rings, and she has to fumble with the annoyingly bright, loud, horribly obnoxious thing that interrupted her sleep until she manages to press it to her ear. She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but apparently she had because her mouth tastes like soured disappointment and her head has its own drumbeat. “Hello?” she croaks.

“Regina…”

“Emma? Baby, are you –?” she stops. Emma isn’t hers anymore, is she? She can’t call her that anymore, can she? She hears the blonde’s breath hitch and tries not to sob. Swallowing several times, she tries to speak around the lump in her throat. “Are you alright?”

“I am  _so_ sorry.” Emma’s on the brink of crying; Regina can tell by the waver in her voice, how it cracks toward the end of  _sorry_. She’s getting rather tired of hearing that word.  _‘What did I say about sorries, my love_  ?’ She wants to softly admonish, but doesn’t because she knows Emma means it, and because the intricacy of the heart is a funny, knowing thing.

“I know.”

“I love you.”

Regina swallows. “I know.” She wants to say it back, but can’t because there’s a tornado in her stomach.

There’s a pause, then: “I’m scared, okay? I  _want_ to marry you, Regina –”  _No, she doesn’t,_ the dark part of Regina’s mind taunts – “I just… can’t. Ever since we came back from Camelot, the darkness has been spreading…” she hears Emma draw a shaky breath, “And I don’t wanna hurt you. Not again.”

She nods, then remembers Emma can’t see her and wills herself to speak. “When are you going to stop running from me, Emma?” Because beneath the anger, hurt and heartbreak, that’s the one question she needs an answer to.

“When the darkness ebbs, when I have no fear of hurting my family… when I feel like  _me_ again, Regina.”

“I can help–”

“It’s too dangerous.”

 _Damn you, Emma Swan!_ “Tell me which part of our lives isn’t, _Savior_ ,” she bites out, truly losing her patience now.

“Regina…” Such a pleading tone, such a begging, soft whisper. Regina can’t hear anymore, not right now, with tears in her eyes and worry coiling in her throat.

“I have to go, Emma. Since you are so insistent I give you time, you can have it. I need time, as well.” The other end of the line is silent, and dear  _God_ she wants nothing more than to hold the blonde, kiss the beautiful pink mouth she knows is trembling with the effort to keep her pain silent. But she can feel it, feel Emma’s pain as though it were her own, and it is nothing she can voice. They’ve always spoken through silence, through gazes and touches and grips of the hand; they know, and Regina is thankful she doesn’t have to speak to be heard.

“I love you,” her would-be fiancé whispers again, like it’s the one phrase she can cling to – like those three words are her only truth.  

“You know I do,” Regina supplies in way of answer, because she  _can’t_ say it. Last night is too fresh a wound.

“I know you do,” Emma breaths.

“Goodnight, my swan.” Without waiting for an answer, she hangs up and turns her phone off, releasing a wail that rivals the one she gave when her father died.

***

**It’s better to feel pain, than nothing at all (the opposite of love’s indifference)**

“Emma!” Archie greets in surprise, then frowns when he notices the Savior’s appearance. The woman looks like she hasn’t slept in days, if the dark circles under her eyes are any indication. “Come, please, sit.” The blonde does, sinking into the leather couch with a resigned sigh. Archie takes out his clipboard, crosses his right leg over his left knee, and waits. He has learned that it is a better tactic – to let the Savior speak on her own time instead of barraging her with questions. She leans forward, rests her forearms on her jean-clad thighs, and fixes him with a contemplative, albeit pained, expression.

“Regina asked me to marry her.” Red eyebrows shoot up into a slowly receding hairline at that. She stops, lets him absorb it, the beautiful, unbelievable sentence she had just uttered. His mouth opens, and, remembering himself, he snaps it shut, but his eyes still hold wonder, wide and awed.

“That’s – Emma, that’s wonderful! Congratulations!” And then he sees it; the sad, wistful smile, the fisted hands.  _Oh, no_.

“ –And… I said no. I said no, and  _all_ I wanted to do was say yes.”

It was Archie’s turn to give a contemplative frown. “Forgive me, but I don’t quite understand. You love Regina, don’t you?” Tears, hot and ashamed and bitter as the Savior seems to cave in on herself, doubling over with the weight of her regret.

“More than life,” Emma gasps through her tears. She grits her teeth, tries to control the swell of emotion sitting like a stone in her chest, and explains: “Which is why I had to say no. The darkness is spreading… They didn’t manage to get it out of me in Camelot, Archie. And it’s… smothering me. The voices are louder now, at first they were just whispers, but….” She takes a shuddering breath, and says the one thing he never thought the Savior would say: “Help me.”

***

**Mother, you had me (but I never had you)**

He goes mute when she tells him. She understands the convulsing neck, the clenched teeth, the hatred and anger and hurt manifesting itself through the tears in his eyes. She knows the soul-crushing resentment that takes hold of a child’s heart when they feel rejected by someone who was  _supposed_ to love them. She knows Emma  _does_ , knows that the blonde would give her son the moon, if only she could figure out how. She knows this, but looking now at the crumpled plains of her son’s face, she  _hates_  Emma’s greater-good complex, hates it more now than ever.

“Is she coming back?” And his voice is that of a small bird’s, frail and hopeful despite fear.

“Your mother loves us, Henry,” she whispers, placing her hand over his and intertwining their fingers from across the dining table, desperate to touch and comfort him. “You know that.” He nods solemnly, and she sees in his gaze how bothered, how unbelieving he is. She strokes the skin beneath her thumb. “We’ll get her back, I promise.” The tears, which had dried on his reddened cheeks, form again in the corners of his eyes, lighting with sad realization.

“Are you okay?” Oh, her sweet, caring boy. Her intuitive little prince. She is breaking inside, she wants to tell him, she is bereft and aching and wrong in her skin – but he is still a boy, and would not fully understand.

She gives a tight-lipped smile. “I will be.” That pacifies him, or so she thinks, until he gives a rough imitation of his own smile and she notices it doesn’t reach his eyes. She pushes back her chair, stands, opens her arms to him, and he, already on his feet, collapses into them with the relief of realizing  _someone_ is there for him. “I love you, Henry,” she murmurs, kissing his forehead, “And Emma does too. Don’t forget that, okay?”

“Okay,” he sniffs. “I love you too, Mom.”  _Mom._ Her heart overflows every time that word is uttered. The same way, she expects, that Emma’s overflows every time he says  _Ma_. To many the words are just names, honorifics given to women that sometimes don’t deserve them, but to Emma and herself, they are earned trophies to which no price is conceivable.

“I’m glad, my prince,” she says, a true smile at the edge of her mouth.

She knows, watching him, listening to his footfalls on the stair as he goes up to his room, that some of his innocence has been lost tonight. And perhaps it shouldn’t sadden her like it does, because he’s  _growing_ , changing, becoming his own person, and yet… It is a paradox, she realizes, being a parent. She wonders, as she too heads to a bed she knows will be cold, whether or not her own mother felt the same way.

 

Lying on her back, she holds the dagger which she had magicked from her vault. Running her thumb along the edge, she presses, until blood blooms on the pad of it. She winces, only slightly, watches the single red line drip down the blade. She realizes, as she feels the pulse and sting of blood, how unbelieving this is: Spilling blood for the Dark One. No, not the Dark One; Emma,  _her_  Emma, whose soul never stills and whom she loves more than words. Using the dagger now would only beckon the darkness in Emma’s heart closer to the surface, would only hasten her decent to madness. Anger bubbles then, twisted in love, and she wants her  _back_ ; wants the  _'Yes’_ she had seen in Emma’s eyes before it was shadowed by doubt, wants the smile seemingly crafted by sunlight.

Beneath the pull of sleep, heavy and insistent, she has one lucid thought:  _I **will**  save you._

***

**Show me where it hurts (this dirty little curse)**

“Swan,” Killian greets her on the deck of the Jolly Rodger, his ever-present charm evident in his smirk and gleaming oceanic eyes. “What can I do for you, love?” She knows why she’s here, because Archie hadn’t helped, and she thinks alcohol will - because Killian is  _easy_  and undemanding and  _not_  Regina. 

“I need a drink,” she says, because the voices are getting worse, like the flapping of bees’ wings against her skull, and she needs it to  _stop_ , just for a minute.  He raises a dark brow.  _Not Regina,_ she thinks,  _Not Regina, not Regina, not Regina._ She can’t deal with it now, the knowledge of the crushing disappointment everyone around her must feel.  ** _All you ever do is fail_** , the voices taunt, a mixture of all the darkness she has  _ever_  felt: a little girl with bruised knees, begging to be loved, abandoned by her first love; chains and guilt and  _hatred_.

“Trouble in paradise?” He says it good-naturedly, easily. Her stomach twists.

“Yeah,” she whispers, shoving her hands in her pockets and not meeting his gaze. And she doesn’t see it, looking down at the wooden planks of the ship, but his expression softens. He knows what it is to fight invisible demons; to seek the numbing solace that rum provides. He nods, puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. She gives a weak smile, wipes a reddening nose, and follows him into the captain’s cabin.

She sits on his bed, watches him silently as he goes to a cupboard and takes out a shot glass. Then to the table to pour, then to her, hand outstretched and smile grim. She takes it with a relieved and yet somehow guilty expression, knocks it back, swishes it around in her mouth, winces as the taste turns to fire in her throat. He gives a smirk, a raise of his bottle, and drinks, long and unbothered; practiced at ignoring the voices in his head. She admires that quality in him, is drawn to it, that roguish, independent, selfishness. She had had that quality, she remembers, but had lost it somewhere between Henry showing up at her door and Regina’s first  _“I love you, Emma.”_ She wants it back now, because it  _protects_ , and she hates feeling like this, helpless and lost and weak.

Emma offers her empty glass, hopes the part of her mind screaming  _Find her, find your **safety** , _will shut up if she drinks enough.

“So,” Killian says, sitting next her on the bed with his flask, “What’s troubling that pretty blonde head of yours, hmm?” She tells him all of it, from the voices to Regina’s proposal, her reflexive bolting; Archie’s suggestion, which, incidentally, was turning out to be a valid one. Maybe she  _should_ talk to Gold. She didn’t give voice to this last thought, as Killian’s face was already creased with worry. Guilt and frustration turns into three more shots, quick and burning down her throat. “Easy, love,” he murmurs, reaching with his hook to take the glass from her and set it aside. “It’ll soon have ya loose – no need to get blasted.”

She laughed once, a humorless exhalation of air. “A pirate giving lessons on moderation – is this the twilight zone?”

He shakes his head, sighs, hands her the flask. “Emma…” he says it softly, like  _I’m worried about you_ , like  _I **care** about you_. He always had, she realizes then, looking at him. He loves her quietly, like one who isn’t proficient with words does, and she  _understands_ that kind of love, because that’s the way she herself loves.

She gulps another mouthful of rum, sets it aside, presses her lips to the stubble of his cheek. And it’s not the softness she’s used to, and she’s both thankful and guilt-ridden because  _this isn’t right_. Her hand creeping inside his leather jacket, her mouth kissing along his jaw, all  ** _wrong_**. The darkness is murmuring in her ear:  ** _Indulge, forget. He won’t ask anything more of you. He isn’t your parents. He isn’t Regina…_** She bites her lip at that, digs her fingers into his thigh. He is still under her hands, restrained and waiting. “Swan,” his voice is hoarse, “Are you sure…?”

“Will you expect anything more of me afterwards?” she breaths.

“I – no, but… Regina…”

“Regina isn’t here…” And she’s glad of it, because the voices are too loud and she doesn't want to  _think_ and the hard plains of his body are  _distracting_. He takes a deep breath, cups her chin, brings her mouth up for a kiss.

***

**I don’t feel right (when you’re gone away)**

Regina stands outside the Charming’s loft with dread twisting low in her stomach. She hasn’t heard from Emma, and with things as… rocky as they are between them, that worries her. Henry trails silently behind her, the picture of dejection, and her heart breaks. Taking a deep breath, she readjusts her black trench coat and waits. Waits and hopes. Hopes that her love answers the door, hopes that she can convince her to come  _home_. Because it feels wrong, this chasm between them, and she desperately wants to cross it.

“Snow,” she says when the door opens, “I thought – Is Emma here?”

The pixie-haired woman shakes her head, regards Regina with something that looks disgustingly like pity, and says “No.” And the crestfallen look on the older brunette’s face is enough for Snow to sigh and draw her into a hug. “C’mon,” she murmurs, locking eyes with her grandson over Regina’s shoulder, “Let’s get you two some tea.”

Regina pulls back and gives a wan little smile. “Did you forget I abhor tea, Snow?”

She smirks. “Coffee, then?”

“Please. Black, four sugars.” Snow nods, lets them both inside. Henry, seeing no sign of his grandfather, heads sullenly to his room, undoubtedly to lose himself in a comic. He misses the twin look of concern aimed at his slumped shoulders. Regina sighs, walks to the counter and sits. She resists the urge to put her head in her hands. “Where’s David?” she asks, because this is something she’s an old hand at; avoiding pain and confusion and  _herself_  – her own insecurities – with pleasantries. 

“In the shower,” Snow answers easily, busying herself with making the other brunette’s coffee. “Maybe he can take Henry to Granny’s for a bear claw, might cheer him up.” Regina nods absentmindedly, her fingers steepled beneath her chin and a faraway look in her eyes. Snow says nothing; waits until Regina’s coffee is clutched in her hands before speaking. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

Regina laughs once, bitter and hard. “Who are you, Robin Williams?” Dark brows knit together in confusion. “Never mind. It  _feels_ like my fault, that’s the point. I tried to give Emma her happy ending, and she ran from me. She’s always running from me,” she scowls into her cup, brooding.

“She doesn’t  _want_ to, Regina. She just –”

David appears then, dirty blonde hair almost brown from dampness, so like his daughter’s. “Regina,” he greets warmly, coming to his wife’s side and wrapping an arm around her waist.

“Charming.”

“How are you? How’s Henry?”

“As you might expect,” she answers with the dullness that accompanies heartache.

“Do you know where she is?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Snow cuts in. “In the meantime, why not take Henry to Granny’s? He’s upstairs.”

David nods. “Of course.” He detaches himself from Snow’s side, pressing a kiss to her hair before going up the stairs to collect his grandson. Regina stays quiet, drinks her coffee and thinks. She  _has_ to fix this. Her son comes down five minutes later, reluctance and annoyance written on his face. He says nothing as he brushes past her, moodily stomping out the door.

“Snow?” she says when they’re alone again, “Did Emma tell you where she was going?”

“Last I knew Archie’s, why?”

Regina stands. “It’s time I have a word with the cricket.” 

 ***

**I’ve searched the universe (and found myself within her eyes)**

She slouches, and a large part of her protests. She is a  _Queen_ , Queens do not  _slouch_. They do not collapse with emotional exhaustion, or look beseechingly at a cricket; but she does, damn her, because she needs  _answers_. Answers for the heart cracking in her chest. “How are you, Regina?” It’s a soft question, and as he’s asking it concern and worry etch themselves in the creases between his eyebrows as if they’ve never left. Archie. Tender-hearted, well-meaning, irritating Archie, with his insufferable nonsense that Regina really doesn’t think is all that insufferable, secretly. She wants to laugh at his inquiry, but doesn’t because she’s not that person anymore.

“Emma dismissed my proposal of marriage.” It comes out as a sniff, but her hands tighten into fits in her lap and she bites her lip, and when she blinks her eyes sting. Archie says nothing, leans forward, offers a box of  Kleenex, which she takes. Both the Savior and the Mayor, he’s learned, have the same way of talking. “And it’s… it’s…” She can’t find the words, can’t adequately describe to him what it feels like to be loved by Emma Swan, what it feels like to love her in return. It’s like finding the universe in a pair of green eyes, and finally feeling like you  _fit_. It’s like cutting your hand on a rose, and not minding the thorns. It’s like passion and pain and  _rightness anyway_. That’s why it hurts so much, she thinks, because Emma took it away – their  _rightness anyway_. Regina knows it was only because of fear. 

“Devastating?” Archie supplies softly.

Regina shakes her head miserably. “That’s the understatement of the century.” He feels it then, the urge to tell the truth; it threatens to seep from behind his teeth. She sees it – the shadow passing like a cloud over his expression – and narrows her eyes. “You’re hiding something.” He gulps, and her suspicions are confirmed. “Where is she?” It’s a growl, feral and deep with warning. And at least in this she can be the Queen, abrasive and demanding and fierce in her want. She gets to her feet; in two strides she's bending at the waist above his armchair, eyes dark as onyx. Still he remains silent, though large-eyed and quaking. “Tell me!” A yell directly in his face, which makes him flinch.

“It would be against protocol to –”

“Archie,” she hisses, “If you value your job, you will tell me _now_!”

“I – I made a suggestion that she speak to Gold, but…”

“You did _what_?!” She wants to kill him, wants to rip out his heart and crush it till it leaks like sand from between her fingers, but she hears Emma’s voice, calm and persuasive in her mind: _Don’t. You’ve worked too hard; you’re better than this._ She closes her eyes and breaths, over and over until the darkness fades. When she opens them Archie is watching her, trepidation gone from his face. She straightens, back-steps a few paces. Now impressiveness shows itself in the sparkle of his bluer-than-robin’s-eggs eyes and she resists the urge to roll her own. “But what?” she grits out. “You suggested Gold, but what?”

“I’m not certain that’s where she is. She may not have taken my idea to heart.”

Regina’s brow furrows. _Where–? If not there then–_ And dread pools in her stomach, bitter and stagnant. “The pirate.”

She’s flinging the door open before the cricket can open his idiotic mouth again.

*** 

**And I’m paranoid (self-destroyed, believe me lord I’m sorry)**

“Gold!” Emma shouts against the frantic pounding in her ears, shouts against the guilt and disgust and self-hatred coiled in her stomach. She hates herself, hates the voices and the self-sabotage that’s still wet on the insides of her thighs. **_You did nothing wrong… It was just harmless fun. Don't you remember what fun is, Emma? Aren’t you tired of expectations? Aren’t you tired of never being enough for the people you call family?_** And that sticks, because _yes_ she is tired, _so_ tired…

She can feel it, the slipping of the person she used to be, and damn her, she’s losing the ability to care.

“No need to shout, Dearie,” she hears as the curtains to the back of his shop open and he steps into view. “What can I do for you?” She doesn’t know how to ask, now that she’s in front of him. She really never _has_ been good with words. But she tries, she breaths and opens her mouth and listens to the part of her that still cares, fleeting as that part may be.

“The darkness, it’s taking over, and before it does, I need to – to leave. Go somewhere safe – far from them, _for_ them…”

“Well, I can’t imagine your nearest and dearest would take too kindly to that, can you?”

 She fights the urge to cry, swallows her pride and says “Please.”

He nearly laughs at the desperation in the blonde’s eyes. “ _Please_! What a pretty word.”

“Gold!” And this is her last resort, baring her teeth in a snarl she knows is too pathetic to be convincing.

He seems to take pity on her. He sighs. “Very well. I suppose, as a favor to Belle… You know of the cell in the dungeon of your mother’s kingdom. It held me for centuries; it will do for you as well. Wait a moment.” He disappeared behind the curtain for thirty heartbeats before reappearing. Seeing he held something in his hand, she held out her palm, and he dropped a single bean into it.

“What’s your price?” she asks, folding her fingers around the gift protectively.

“Price?” The former Dark One arches a brow. “My dear Savior, you have nothing left to offer. I hazard to guess that’s why you’re here, is it not?” To this, to his knowing, gleaming eyes, she can make no reply. All she can do is meet his gaze, pocket her prize of piteous circumstance, and leave. Slink away like the hapless bitch she is, tail tucked and integrity nonexistent.

***

**Sweetheart, (what have you done to our love?)**

Regina’s knuckles are red and swollen by the time she’s done slamming her fist into the deplorable man’s door. He answers with an irritated groan before she hears the creaking of floorboards and the latch give way, revealing him to be shirtless and bleary-eyed. “Your Majesty, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

 _Damn him and his mockery of chivalry!_ “Where is she, you miserable cur?” she spits, eyes narrowed to pits but still aflame with rage. “Tell me, or so help me that heart of yours will be ash!” And this time, she means it, morals be damned.

He puts his hands up in a gesture of peace. “Easy. She isn’t here, Regina.” She catches a whiff of Emma’s perfume as he moves, shifts with a nervousness she hadn’t noticed before. He sees the look in her eyes as realization dawns: rage and hurt and devastation war for dominance on her face. Anger wins, and he is magically lifted into the air, an invisible hand squeezing at his throat. “Wait!” he gasps, “Regina, it wasn’t me!”

“ _Wasn’t you_?! You expect me to believe Emma would just throw herself at you–!”

“Yes! She did!” He begins to see blackness at the corners of his eyes. “It’s not… what you think…” Her hold relaxes a bit. “It wasn’t because she doesn’t love you, it was the darkness…” He hits the deck with an unforgiving thud. Rubbing his neck and coughing, he watches as the Queen paces, then leans over the side of his ship and wretches. Her head is pounding and the wrongness of this, the absolute betrayal of it, is  _sickening_. 

She feels panic edge into her lungs, feels the cold prick of anxiety shoot down her spine, the telltale tingling numbness in her hands…   _No! **NO!**_ But her body is a traitor and she’s gasping, white-knuckled as she struggles to regain the composure she desperately misses. She’d lost it somewhere among decades of darkness and the love of her family, but she wants it back, in that moment, more than anything. Wants _not_ to care but at the same time care anyway, because _godamnit_ she loves Emma Swan. Strong, tender, soft, occasionally petulant, _amazing_ , infuriating Emma Swan. The woman who her soul searched and begged and fought for, without even realizing it. The only one able to bring her to her knees in passion, sadness, and, most surprising of all, gratitude. 

So yes, she will find her, and she will love her, until _both_ their flaws seem less insurmountable. Because she _knows_ Emma would do the same, has done the same, in her round-about, Charming-style way. And even though hurt has settled tightly against her ribs, and she's angry and despondent and burning with the injustice of it all, she knows they've both come too far to let everything they've built over the years rust and fade like the nothingness they _pretended_ their relationship was. She won't let it happen.

“She wasn’t in her right mind,” Hook supplies from her far right, gingerly getting to his feet. “You know that as well as I. It isn’t me who her heart truly belongs to.”

“Emma isn’t a possession, cretin,” Regina snaps, the protective side of her thrown into disquiet by his words.

Hook rolls his eyes. “Forgive me for offending your sensibilities, Your Majesty.” Sarcasm drips from him. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she looks out across the harbor as she speaks, contemplative. “She’s gone to Gold, then.”

“Aye.”

A resigned sigh escapes her lips. “ _Wonderful_.”

***

**I don’t want love to destroy me (like it has done my family)**

Henry looks at his adoptive mother worriedly as she comes through his grandparent's door. She doesn’t try to hide her expression from him, all pretenses of false convincing gone. She doesn’t have the energy for it, he knows, and that realization, stark and bleak as it is, is what makes his heart sink all the more. And so he smiles for her, reads the exhaustion and pain and dried tears for what they are, and goes to hug her. Because it’s the only thing he knows to do. She hugs him back in silent, heartfelt thanks and he allows himself to relax for a moment, to bask in the simplicity of the love she gives him so effortlessly.

“What happened?” he asks softly,  before his grandparents have a chance to speak.

His mother’s body sags. “Emma’s gone back to the Enchanted Forest and locked herself in Rumple’s cell.”

“He had a bean?” David speaks up from behind him, low and solid and dangerous.

His mother nods, bites her lip. “What price?” Snow demands, voice firm and uncompromising, so unlike Mary Margret. Henry turns to look at her. He likes this version of her, this fierce, unwavering woman with gentleness and good intentions at the heart of every action.

“He insisted there wasn’t one. There _has_ to be one. I’m sure there is, I just have to find it…” Brown eyes cloud with thoughts Henry can’t read, but his gut tells him something is very, _very_ wrong. He’s getting rather tired of his mothers’ willingness to throw themselves into danger. Maybe he doesn’t understand romantic love, after all. It seems, now, contradictory and nonsensical in every sense of the word. He frowns. “I’m going to see Blue,” his dark-haired mother announces, her Mayor voice in full effect, curt and decisive and in no mood for wasting time.

Both his grandparents give a nod of agreement. Snow places a hand on his shoulder, squeezes. “Be careful, Regina.” She nods, and then she’s hugging him again, tightly.

“Love you, Mom,” he murmurs into the fragrant, familiar folds of her trench coat before pulling back.

"And I you, my prince. Always." Her lips twitch upward as she grazes his cheek with her fingers, but before he can blink, she’s gone in a mist of purple.

No, he doesn’t understand love much at all.

***

**So build a wall, behind it crawl (and hide until it’s light)**

She feels the exact moment it happens, feels the darkness wrap around her and _squeeze._ It roots itself with exacting precision in the base of her heart, and spreads outward, filling her body with the rage of abandonment and self-hatred. Flashes, blinding strobe-lights behind her eyes: _A baby, a dark street. Crying, wailing for warmth. A little girl screaming as she’s pinned, calling for help that isn’t there. Handcuffs around her wrists; the clank of a cell door. He never called. Pregnant, scared. “I can’t be a mother.” An empty nursery, a glass unicorn mobile…_

 _ **Y**_ ** _ou are nothing to them! NOTHING!_** _The pain in Regina’s eyes when she rejected her. **All you’ve ever done is hurt her; you’ve DESTROYED her! You’re no Savior, you belong to the darkness!**_ She’s on her knees, clutching her head, the dirt floor of the cell blurred by tears.

“Stop it!” she yells, “STOP IT!” _Too many pills, is her heart slowing? Yes. Good. Floating above the bed, she watches herself, watches the chest compressions and her tear-stained cheeks. Is she dead?_ It’s pricking her skin, she scratches, and then it happens: One breath and a shift. **_Welcome, pained one.  Fear not, for we are your family now. We shall never abandon you._**

Emma throws her head back and laughs.

*** 

**All I needed (was the love you gave)**

Regina hears the laugh, the cold, desperate echo of it, and shivers.

She isn’t ready for this, isn’t ready for what she knows she’s about to see. She pauses in the narrow passageway, because her feet refuse to move at the moment, and she breaths, listens to the sounds of fire hissing in sconces along the wall and the blood pumping in her veins. The hilt of the dagger is sweaty in her palm. As soon as her feet had touched this godforsaken place, she’d felt it; the power charging through the blade, sinister and beckoning. She knows Emma can feel her, can feel the familiar pull of her magic, and yet she hasn’t been called.

Taking a deep breath, she walks forward . Emma is on her knees in the middle of the cell, looking at her. Silent tears are streaming down her love’s cheeks. “Emma…” She wraps her mouth around the name in that soft, loving way and the Dark One shifts closer to the bars, the perfect picture of a silent, obedient pet. The move is reminiscent of her Queen days and it makes Regina’s heart twist painfully in her chest. She crosses the dungeon and kneels, reaches out to touch a deathly-pale cheek. “Oh, darling…” Emma nuzzles her hand, _nuzzles_ it,  her eyes close in contentment. And when those eyes open, it is not her swan that greets her, but a creature she has never met. Emma’s hair is now a stark white, still long and curled, draping around her shoulders. Her lips are a bright blood-red. Most startling of all are her eyes, a black-blue abyss that Regina shivers when she looks into. A lone hand stretches between the bars, freeing itself from a silken black cloak, all sinew and bone, and touches her face.

“My Queen…” It is said reverently, warmly, a whispered litany she has heard her entire life, and yet hearing it fall from Emma’s lips makes her eyes sting.

“Emma, baby, it’s me,” she takes the hand from her cheek, kisses the knuckles. “It’s me…” She is no Queen in that moment, she is a broken woman on her knees begging for her lover. And Emma blinks, cocks her head, and all that Regina sees in her eyes is confusion .

“My Queen?” Tears start to fall then. She doesn’t remember. The dagger, the darkness, must have taken her memories.

“Emma… Do you love me?” She needs to know if _this_ has stayed, at least. She feels the engagement ring in her pocket, a physical manifestation of _hope_ and _them_ and holds her breath. 

“I am your loyal servant, My Queen.” Regina takes a shuddering breath. So this is it then. She closes her eyes, readying herself, and when she opens them she meets a furrowed brow. She stands, dagger in hand.

“Rise then, My Pet,” she breaths. Her command is met with questioning eyes. With a wave of her hand, the cage is gone, and she turns the blade towards herself. “I have one last request of you, Emma.” Her voice breaks as she speaks. “I need you to kill me.”

Emma takes the blade with shaking fingers. “Why?”

“Because I have failed you, and I would rather die than live with that knowledge.”

“Failed me? My Queen, you –”

“I command it, Dark One,” resoluteness colors her voice, “I have a blood-oath with you, do I not? You _must_ do as I ask. Slay me.” She opens her arms wide, grits her teeth. “ _Now!_ ” And the blade is plunged into her stomach. She gasps, feels the darkness flow through her. She slumps against Emma, is lowered gently to the ground. She touches Emma’s face. “Emma, I’m sorry…” She sees it as the darkness surges in her veins, the changing of Emma’s eyes, slowly returning to green. Beautiful green. If this is to be her last sight as a mortal, Regina thinks, It isn’t a bad one.

She feels tears on her cheeks that aren’t hers. “Regina? Regina!” _There you are, my beautiful swan_. “Oh God. No. No, no, no!”

“Shhh…” she soothes. “It’s alright, my love.”

“No,” Emma’s openly sobbing now. There’s far too much blood and not enough time and Regina’s _dying_ in her arms. “No, you can’t leave me. Not you too. You promised!”

Regina gives her a pained smile. “I will… always… be,” she swallows, fights through the deflating of her lungs to speak, “With you.”

“Regina,” her name is a high, tearful, agonized cry. “Please. Please baby, don’t leave me. I love you.”

“I love you, too. My… swan.” A heaving gasp that sounds like a laugh and then she feels lips on her, on her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her mouth **.**

It’s desperate and sad and full of truth, this kiss. She feels herself being filled with something, pouring out of Emma’s mouth like water. _Light magic_ , her mind supplies fuzzily, but no… More than that. A burst of magic unlike anything she has ever felt follows it and she gasps at the feeling.

 _True Love’s Kiss._ She knows it instantly, feels it in the way Emma’s very soul intertwines with hers.  The blood is evaporating, her organs are repairing themselves. She brings her hand up, places it on the back of Emma’s  head. Emma takes the hint and kisses her harder, elated by the feel of Regina responding. A moan reverberates in Regina’s mouth. Emma pulls back seconds later, teary-eyed and awed and perfectly imperfect. Regina’s never been more in love with her.

“How…?” And she knows what her love really means, the question she’s trying to voice but can’t find the words for. _We’ve kissed hundreds of times, why now?_

Regina rises slowly, wanting to really _look_ into the green eyes she loves so much. Emma readjusts easily.  The brunette tucks a piece of gold behind a pale, shell-shaped ear. “Doubt,” she says softly. “Until that moment, you were doubting if you were who I truly wanted, while I already knew.”

“I – Regina I’m sorry. Killian was just there and I didn’t want you to see me like that and I –”

“Emma.” That beautiful, low, soft, safe, loving caress of her name that always made her shudder. “You love me. _Me_. Nothing beyond that matters now.” She leans forward, gently kissing the pale mouth that always reminds her of rose petals. “I know you weren’t yourself,” she breaths, their lips still touching as she speaks. She feels Emma’s breath hitch, and smiles. Pulling back, her eyes gleam at the look of want in the blonde’s eyes, real and intense and because of _her_.

“Baby?”

“Darling?” she teases.  And the mood shifts yet again as Emma becomes shy. “What is it?”

“Can I… Can I wear it?” Regina blinks. For all her proficiency in Emma-speak, she doesn’t know if this is a _Yes_ or a _Please ask me again_. “If you have it still… I mean, umm, if you still want to…?” In answer, she simply pulls the ring out of her pocket, because she can’t speak when Emma’s eyes are filling with tears and love and that ever-present _awe_ when a moment like this presents itself.  

She smiles, smirks. “Yes, I still want to.”

Emma holds out her hand, pale fingers shaking. “Oh no, my love,” Regina tuts teasingly, “I don’t intend on making an honest woman of you _here_ of all places. No, surely you know that. You are a Princess after all.”

The blonde bites her lip. “A Princess marrying a Queen. Now there’s a novel idea.”

Regina laughs, warm and bright. “Actually, if we wed here, you would be  _my_ Queen. But yes, it’s still a novel idea regardless.”

Emma presses their foreheads together. “I like the sound of that.”

Regina’s breath hitches. “Do you?” Her voice is hoarse.

A  low chuckle meets her ears and arousal makes her heart beat faster. “Yes.” And then Emma’s kissing her, fully and passionately and dear _God_  she’s missed this.

“I love you,” it’s a choked, breathless moan uttered against Emma’s mouth.

Emma moans in response, open-mouthed and hot and _needy_

Regina’s rapidly losing control. She puts her hands on steadying shoulders and pulls away. “ _Emma_. Baby, we have to stop. I am not going to make love to you here. You deserve better. Besides,” she gives a final peck, “Our son is waiting for us.”

Emma sighs and gives a warm smile, nods.

Regina pulls a blue bean from her other pocket and takes Emma’s hand. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
